Will Work For Raw, Organic, Vegan Food: Lessons in Foraging

This week I've been foraging for wild food around town and also for work. Let me just put it out there: I hate (HATE) job searching! Thank God this one didn't last long. After pressing the career reset button, I was a little anxious about finding something quickly so I wouldn't have to depend on Mom and Dad to pay bills for long. I got lucky and was hired today by Lifetouch Studios. I had pretty much every school portrait of my young life taken by Lifetouch and now I'll be the one behind the camera.

I'm feeling extremely grateful to the universe for being able to find work within the field I'm pursuing. School photography won't exactly earn me a Pulitzer, but it does teach you a lot about lighting very ill-lit rooms and I'll be working with complex cameras that will be fun to learn on. The chance to work with cameras on a day to day basis makes me want to squeal with joy (*Sqeeeeeeeeeeeeee* That was for you Blaqberry!)!!!!!!

What else makes my joy runneth over? Freegan finds!!! Within the last week I have been lucky enough to find both apples and blackberries! These didn't come from a grocery's dumpster (I'm still wary of this technique--so many germs in a dumpster!). They came from an even better source: Unsprayed urban trees and bushes! The City of Eugene does not spray any of its properties with pesticides, leaving plants that yield produce mostly organic in nature. In addition, many, like the trees we got windfall apples from, are located in parks that were once part of farm homesteads and did not grow from Genetically Modified seeds.

You would be surprised what you can find around your city if you begin looking. Beyond a backyard, porch or windowsill garden, using free urban resources to supplement your groceries is such a freakin' great practice to adopt during the warm months. Instead of paying $5.00 for a pint of organic berries, we've found a spot and I get as much as I want for FREE! That's zero, zip, nada, zilch! Wild greens are another easily found money saver. Think about how much you would spend on dandelion greens at Whole Foods. Seriously! It's worth a little research and/or covert planting on your behalf! I haven't found a source for wild greens in Eugene yet, (mostly because I've been working on the mammoth load of organic ones in our garden out back) but I've only been here a week, so just give me time!

Before I wrap this up, I've got to talk about those blackberries Mom found in the park at the end of our street. These babies were sweet and succulent--just the way a blackberry should be. Can't wait to go get a giant bowl full and stuff my face with them! Raw Blackberry Cobbler anybody? No doubt it will be in the dehydrator before the day is up!

But first we've got to let the fruit leather we are making from the pulp of the apples we juiced in the AM finish and I've got a craving for corn jalapeno chips too! I might just have to invest in another dehydrator. The one we have is constantly full of goodies! I love it!

Speaking of...off to make those chips (Using Sarma Melngailis's recipe out of Raw Food, Real World that I discovered via Penni from Real Food Tulsa's recipe! Thanks Miss Vroom!) .

Ciao bellas and beaus!